THE Government today pledged to pay compensation to retired miners as quickly as possible after hearing that many claimants feared they would die before receiving their money.

MPs from all sides of the House called for the compensation process for men suffering mining-related illnesses to be speeded up.

Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the Government was dealing with the claims of the sickest miners first.

"We have already put in place a system to prioritise the compensation claims of the oldest miners and the sickest miners so that they go to the top of the queue for the medical assessment that has to be done before the compensation can actually be paid.

"We are determined to ensure that those claims, those assessments, are made by spring of next year."

Ms Hewitt said the Government was paying out around #1 million in compensation every day.

She told MPs at question time in the Commons: "We are doing them as quickly as we can because that is the right thing to do."

Ms Hewitt conceded that having 300 lawyers involved in the claims had been a "very real" problem.

"We are now dealing better with the solicitors group and agreeing a faster way forward to get those cases resolved and the money paid out," she added.

Labour backbencher Bill O'Brien (Normanton) said some claims had been outstanding for five years.

"Members of our constituencies are in their middle eighties and still waiting for compensation. Some of these people are in fear that they will not receive the benefit while they are living.

"I consider that it is too much to accept that claims of four or five years have not been met."

Tory Sir Patrick Cormack (S Staffordshire) asked if all the claims could settled by the spring of next year.

Ms Hewitt said the Government had already received 150,000 claims and did not know how many more it would receive.

"We will go on dealing with this as quickly as is possible but I cannot at this point give an end date for when we will have finished dealing with all the cases," she said.